Reviews of Telegrama

Telegram announces itself as a talc centric fragrance...at least that's what I read in the original marketing materials, but honestly it has the bones of one of my favorite IA fragrances and that's Saint Julep. It's the "sugar" accord that is the foundation of both Telegrama and Saint Julep to my nose, but where Saint Julep is a white sugar accord with mint, Telegrama is a brown sugar accord...and a very carmelized brown sugar accord at that. It smells very nice and I definitely need to spend some more time with it. There is a faint lavender and a light wood accord as this develops. A great first impression for me from Telegrama...

Sweet, burnt vanilla-sugar, reminding me of BR540, is what jumps out about this scent overall. However, it's not all about the sweetness as the base is green with lavender and slightly powdery. That powder resembles talc, but not in a weird way that's trying to be hyper-realistic. Just gives it a slightly medicinal feel.

Feels very unisex and modern. With as much sweetness is going on here, it seems best for cooler weather. Performance isn't all that big though, so it could be pulled off in warmer weather possibly. Longevity and projection are average with minimal sprays, so go big and on clothes to help with both.

It’s my third or fourth wearing of Imaginary Authors’ latest release, Telegrama, and I can’t get enough of it. It’s fresh, sweet, chalky, highly interesting, and yet is reasonably agreeable, like other recent releases Saint Julep and Sundrunk, in that it’s accessible and fresh for fans for warm-weather-friendly fragrances only, but contains a lot of depth and nuance, like the aforementioned releases.

The listed notes are talc, lavender, black pepper, teak, amyris, vanilla powder, and fresh linens, with presumably the last of these being the “imaginary” note, an attribute common to each and every perfume of the house.

The black pepper, talc, and teak provide a viable contrast to the robust lavender—Telegrama’s standout note, in my opinion—and the vanilla powder, which acts as a sweet-yet-powdery anchor to the fragrance as it dries down. It’s linen-fresh yet sweet, slightly powdery (but not screechy or sharp), and just a bit woody, spicy, and chalky to provide some great texture and structure underneath.

It performs well, too—perhaps not a beast like Cape Heartache, Memoirs of a Trespasser, or A City on Fire, but just a notch down, which feels right, given the versatile type of fragrance it is. And its bottle design is as nice as ever, with a two-color theme to the usual one-color display, very much on the nose while somehow being a bit different from prior bottles’ designs.

Like everything that Josh Meyer releases, Telegrama is innovative and intriguing. I don’t own every perfume in the IA lineup, but I find it difficult not to admire the artistry in even the fragrances of which I’ve not purchased a bottle, and in that respect, I’d always encourage newcomers to the brand to try the full line and see what clicks with your personal style.

Telegrama is instant “love” for me, providing something new but also with lovable familiar characters (lavender and especially vanilla) but in a different story, the result being a perfume that’s both unique and versatile, as it feels perfectly suited for all seasons and situations. It’s among my very favorite releases from the house, just a touch below my favorite, Cape Heartache.

Telegrama is available on the IA website and great boutiques like Perfumology for what remains a fantastic price of $95 for 50ml, with the 14ml travel size available for $38. I deem it not only full bottle worthy but backup bottle worthy as well.